Mysterious Church Abbreviations

Working with Church Records

For a long time, a copy of this clip has been in the file folder for me to take to Boston to NEHGS to investigate what the abbreviations mean. The first time I found this, even the NEHGS database did not give the abbreviations (which they do now) Let's examine this record to see what it says:

 Step 1: What are these dates and letters?

 Under names we see: "Frederic DENISON(Re)"

This means his name is Frederic Denison and he is a Reverend. The computer database did not put the Rev. preceding his name which is confirmed by the next part under the original text.

Then, there is a date followed by the letter L "June 29, 1876 L"

Looking at the list of abbreviations this L means a letter from another church. To be admitted to join this church it means that he must have a letter from a previous church to join this new church because after all he is a Baptist and they want to make sure he was baptized and was a recognized member of a church.

Then,  there is a nother date followed by the letter L

"Oct 4, 1877 L"

This probably means that this is the date he joined the new church? I am not sure....

Step 2: Locate the source of this database

I am beginning to realize that I need to look at the book that this came from so I printed the book title and the author so NEHGS can help me. I filed this away.

A few months ago, I realized that I might be able to find this book at Google Books for at Archive.org since many out of copyright books are now digitized.  It will help me find out what all this means.

Mystery continued soon...